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Topic: Do it your self formic acid pads (Read 8076 times)

.Varroa treatment products for late summer are mostlu thymol or formic acid based.'

Mite away quickly is for example formic acid pad.

You may do easily formic acid pad from 65% formic acid. Big amounts you get cheaply from cattle forage chops. Formic acid is used in fresh hay forage making. 20 litre acid is here about 50 US dollars. That you may use rest of your life.

When you have reduced the hive to the 2 box position for winter, take 30-40 ml 65% formic adic and let it absorb in some soft material like kitchen paper or toalet paper.

- To treat one box hive, use formic acid 15-20 ml.

Then put that acip paper into a litre plastic bag and put it on the hive frames. Make a wound in the plastic pad that acid can evaporate from material to the hive air.

- use rubber cloves when you handle the acid. It scalp your skin with no warning or feelings. It is fatal to bees too and that is why handle acid pads inside the plastic bag.

Finski. What is your percentage (%) of queen loss with formic treatments? I hear up to 25-30%. If it kills queens, than it must have hurt those that survived.

Nonsence! It is zero if you are carefull. If you "info" is rigth, formic acid would be worse enemy to bees than varroa.

You may read about carefull researches where tests have beed made about "queen losses" and "lowered brood making". European varroa group made tests 10 years. Then some hobbiest make his own formula and says that varroa group is wrong.

Thses tests are all in google with clear English languace. No information barrier.

Queen losses exist and brood losses exist, but they happen what ever you do.

I have heard that if you put fomic acid pad over the ftrames, and the queen is under the pad, it may get too strong dose of acid.

But everyone understand that if 20% queen die in autumn, it is a big catastrofe to the beekeeper.

ROBYN M. UNDERWOOD AND ROBERT W. CURRIEDepartment of Entomology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3T 2N2J. Econ. Entomol. 98(6): 1802Ð1809 (2005)ABSTRACT The combination of the concentration of formic acid and the duration of fumigation(CT product) during indoor treatments of honey bee, Apis mellifera L., colonies to control the varroamite, Varroa destructor Anderson & Trueman, determines the efÞcacy of the treatment. Because highconcentrations can cause queen mortality, we hypothesized that a high CT product given as a lowconcentration over a long exposure time rather than as a high concentration over a short exposuretime would allow effective control of varroa mites without the detrimental effects on queens. Theobjective of this study was to assess different combinations of formic acid concentration and exposuretime with similar CT products in controlling varroa mites while minimizing the effect on worker andqueen honey bees. Treated colonies were exposed to a low, medium, or high concentration of formicacid until a mean CT product of 471 ppm*d in room air was realized. The treatments consisted of along-term low concentration of 19 ppm for 27 d, a medium-term medium concentration of 42 ppm for10 d, a short-term high concentration of 53 ppm for 9 d, and an untreated control. Both short-termhigh-concentration and medium-term medium-concentration fumigation with formic acid killedvarroa mites, with averages of 93 and 83% mortality, respectively, but both treatments also wereassociated with an increase in mortality of worker bees, queen bees, or both. Long-term lowconcentrationfumigation had lower efÞcacy (60% varroa mite mortality), but it did not increaseworker or queen bee mortality. This trend differed slightly in colonies from two different beekeepers.Varroa mite mean abundance was signiÞcantly decreased in all three acid treatments relative to thecontrol. Daily worker mortality was signiÞcantly increased by the short-term high concentrationtreatment, which was reßected by a decrease in the size of the worker population, but not an increasein colony mortality. Queen mortality was signiÞcantly greater under the medium-term mediumconcentration and the short-term high concentration treatments than in controls.

Queen Bee and Colony Mortality. The proportionof queens killed during fumigation differed betweentreatment rooms (P 0.001) with zero of 20 queensdying in the control room, zero of 21 dying in thelong-term low-concentration treatment, Þve of 21queens dying in the medium-term medium-concentrationtreatment, and seven of 21 queens dying in theshort-term high-concentration treatment (Fig. 4). SigniÞcantlymore queens were killed in the short-termhigh concentration (P 0.01) and medium-term mediumconcentration (P 0.05) than in the control.Two queens were killed in the control room; onebefore the start of fumigation and another severalweeks after fumigation ceased.Treatment room did not signiÞcantly affect colonysurvival as estimated on 17 April, 9 d after the colonieswere moved outdoors (P 0.05). However, there wasa signiÞcant effect of treatment room on the queenstate of surviving colonies (P0.01; Fig. 4). Queenlesscolonies were successfully requeened in the springafter treatment.Varroa Mite Mean

Finski. What is your percentage (%) of queen loss with formic treatments? I hear up to 25-30%. If it kills queens, than it must have hurt those that survived.

According to the article excerpt below, the kill rate for queens with medium or high concentrations of formic acid was in excess of 20% (one-third for high concentration). Low concentration over a long period of time (1 month continuous exposure) had no lethal effects on queens or workers, but achieved only 60% mite mortality.

60% over one month would be an acceptable kill rate for mites provided the hive was not already suffering from a major infestation. This is a preventative regimen rather than a short-course treatment.

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The bees would be no help; they would tumble over each other like golden babies and thrum wordlessly on the subjects of queens and sex and pollen-gluey feet. -Palimpsest

Finski. What is your percentage (%) of queen loss with formic treatments? I hear up to 25-30%. If it kills queens, than it must have hurt those that survived.

According to the article excerpt below, the kill rate for queens with medium or high concentrations of formic acid was in excess of 20% (one-third for high concentration). Low concentration over a long period of time (1 month continuous exposure) had no lethal effects on queens or workers, but achieved only 60% mite mortality.

60% over one month would be an acceptable kill rate for mites provided the hive was not already suffering from a major infestation. This is a preventative regimen rather than a short-course treatment.

it depends what you want to see in the article.

You must understand too, that professional beekeepers cannot use the method if it kills hives as much as varroa.

No you are buying commercial products which is actually formic acid and some stuff where acid has been absorbed.

If you are able to debate about dead rate of formic acid methods, you are on wrong way .

I teached 6 years ago oxalic acid trickling in this forum, and I cannot see a sign of learning.

If you are not willing to learn. No one can help you. But for god sake stop sugar saking and vegetable oild spraying.

I just bought 10 treatment of Mite Away from Better Bee, (and per another thread found out how much the shipping costs were, don't let them tell you they don't know how much it costs to ship). I went to use it and read the directions. It strictly states to be used between temperatures between 40 and 92 degrees F. With a warning of high bee kill above 92 degrees. We have temperatures hitting close to 99 every day during most of the day. It will be a while before I can use it.Jim

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"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed."--Mark Twain

I just bought 10 treatment of Mite Away from Better Bee, (and per another thread found out how much the shipping costs were, don't let them tell you they don't know how much it costs to ship). I went to use it and read the directions. It strictly states to be used between temperatures between 40 and 92 degrees F. With a warning of high bee kill above 92 degrees. We have temperatures hitting close to 99 every day during most of the day. It will be a while before I can use it.Jim

Wow...here or anywhere south of me it could be mid October before temps drop that low. By that point the damage from mites is already done to the bees that will overwinter. Or if the temps spike, as they often do, then there goes the queen!

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The bees would be no help; they would tumble over each other like golden babies and thrum wordlessly on the subjects of queens and sex and pollen-gluey feet. -Palimpsest

caticind... good point! I'm in central S. Carolina and we can have days over 92 as late as Nov even into Dec... not normal but the temps would have to be monitored closely. Doesn't the formic acid pads have to remain in the hive for 3 weeks?

caticind... good point! I'm in central S. Carolina and we can have days over 92 as late as Nov even into Dec... not normal but the temps would have to be monitored closely. Doesn't the formic acid pads have to remain in the hive for 3 weeks?

.Varroa treatment products for late summer are mostly thymol or formic acid based.'

Mite away quickly is for example formic acid pad.

You may do easily formic acid pad from 65% formic acid. Big amounts you get cheaply from cattle forage chops. Formic acid is used in fresh hay forage making. 20 litre acid is here about 50 US dollars. That you may use rest of your life.

When you have reduced the hive to the 2 box position for winter, take 30-40 ml 65% formic acid and let it absorb in some soft material like kitchen paper or toalet paper.

- To treat one box hive, use formic acid 15-20 ml.

Then put that acid paper into a litre plastic bag and put it on the hive frames. Make a wound in the plastic pad that acid can evaporate from material to the hive air.

- use rubber cloves when you handle the acid. It scalp your skin with no warning or feelings. It is fatal to bees too and that is why handle acid pads inside the plastic bag.

The document says 250 ml over 21-30 days independently of other conditions (size of hive, temperature etc.). One dose fit all.Finski's dose is similar but allows a freedom to take into account these differences.

Ideally the dosage should be expressed in mg/l in the air of the hive (concentration). Beeks have no instruments to monitor and regulate that. The amount of liquid in a bag is only a very vague approximation of the ideal dosage.

Finski's point is that whatever advantage or disadvantage formic acid has, it is the same with home made pads or commercial products. The difference is only the price.